Guild Wars 2

What exactly is the tradeoff thieves get?

I was doing fairly well with my thief. Or so I thought.

I got into a fight where groups of ice elmentals and svanir spawned pretty much constantly. With caltrops, and my SB, and a lot of dodging – because a few attacks and I’d likely be downed, I managed to defeat one spawn wave. I did this three times, sometimes having to retreat between waves to heal up.

Each wave took me about 1-2mins to clear.

Then along comes random warrior. He walks up to the group, axe/shield combo. Doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t care. His health never went below 70%. Just stood there and facetanked the enemy. Sure, I was helping – but together we cleared a wave in 15 seconds.

So, please someone tell me, what the kitten is the tradeoff thieves get for being so easy to kill, having to dodge all over the place all the time, and (partly due to dodging) having sub-par damage. WHAT THE !#$%^ IS THE TRADEOFF!?!?!

welcome to the thief class…

It depends on your build. Mind letting us take a look at it?

The trade-off is that 95% of the time, every other profession hates you.

Isn’t it lovely?

Sounds to me like he’s built properly for pve, and your not. If you were running S/P you could have stood still and soloed all the mobs untouched. If u were spamming DB with caltops you would have bled them out nearly untouched. IF your set on only using the SB then spamming cluster bomb-explode with signet of malice on your nigh invincible.

SwickHobo.5096:

Sounds to me like he’s built properly for pve, and your not. If you were running S/P you could have stood still and soloed all the mobs untouched. If u were spamming DB with caltops you would have bled them out nearly untouched. IF your set on only using the SB then spamming cluster bomb-explode with signet of malice on your nigh invincible.

Shortbow is probably the BEST weapon for PvE leveling, assuming you’re built right.

the trade off is that we get stealth and the ability to choose upto 4 skills to use back to back from both our weapons in trade for half as many skill uses back to back, lower damage coefficients on average across all our skills, no static or guaranteed defenses, lowest effective health etc etc..

Yeah welcome to the thief class

Though as Swick said, there are ways to build to be closer to what others can do but we still have a big trade off with the biggest thing we gain is the ability to cause complaints on the forums while technically hitting for less than others

- Thieves have the worst defense
- Warriors have the best defense
- Warriors have stomping attacks since they can invest in power freely without losing defense

In general, Warriors are supposed to do a lot better in PvE than thieves. I know, that’s unfair, but it happens. ANet still tries to balance PvE PvP and WvW together

HELLruler.4820:

- Thieves have the worst defense
- Warriors have the best defense
- Warriors have stomping attacks since they can invest in power freely without losing defense

In general, Warriors are supposed to do a lot better in PvE than thieves. I know, that’s unfair, but it happens. ANet still tries to balance PvE PvP and WvW together

They have good defense.

Guards have the best defense.

a guardian can do it just as fast and never even use his (6) skill heal :P thats a fact.

You’re probably doing it wrong. Not that you’re going to clear it as fast as a warrior, but you can clear it much faster. S/P or SB or D/D. Pistol whip, cluster bomb and death lotus can make short work of a lot of mobs and you won’t die that easily in the process.

… Anyhow, no matter your build, the tradeoff tends to be between offense and defense. We tend to have, initially, a very large offensive pool of resources that we can pull from, but a very poor pool of defensive resources. Of course, we don’t want to be strictly defensive, or even defensive in general, but in order to accomplish our objectives we do need some amount of defense, otherwise good play by an opponent will allow them to counter us and eventually run a thief over.

So, the tradeoff, when theorycrafting, is determining how much you’re going to draw out from your pool of offensive resources to give more resources to your defensive pool. Draw too little, and you’ll do a ton of damage, but good counterplay by the enemy will result in your death. Draw too much, and you’ll be too defensive to do anything useful anyways.

Here’s a nice trade off. You know communal skill points and resource nodes that are guarded by pesky champions and veterans? You can use SR and commune/gather without having to fight them. Sb’s also pretty good for getting past traps.
That said it doesn’t do much for us stats wise.

Read this and enjoy leveling.

Sword/pistol and short bow for weapons have the heal skill malice and grab shadow refugee when you can and shadow step. Grab mobs hit pistol whip enjoy!

Edit: caltrops waste of time and to micro combat to bring fast results. I’d rather save my dodge for defense instead of trying to damage off it.

An ice elemental might not seem it at first but it is exactly the sort of slow big hitting mob that can’t do anything when blinded. If you try to kite them with caltrops they will do some area stuff that you have to dodge and then throw some ice at you from range. It will be hard work. Stand next to them with an offhand pistol and you’re probably ok.

So what’s the trade off here? Thieves have skills and utilities that need class knowledge to be used at the right times for good effect. Warriors can be played in much simpler way without the depth of class knowledge. That’s easier for warriors but a good thief with class knowledge can still do better than a warrior who hasn’t learnt to play.

Mindtrick.5190:

Read this and enjoy leveling.

Sword/pistol and short bow for weapons have the heal skill malice and grab shadow refugee when you can and shadow step. Grab mobs hit pistol whip enjoy!

Edit: caltrops waste of time and to micro combat to bring fast results. I’d rather save my dodge for defense instead of trying to damage off it.

Uh, no, Caltrops is the single best utility for solo PvE play. Are you referring to the traited one? Yeah it’s not that great, but the actual utility skill is a godsend.

Actually I already enjoy playing a Thief.

Perhaps thieves are designed to be mostly pvp rock-stars, where you can annoy enemies and a single mug/backstab can make a huge difference in a match.

I always felt that Thieves should be able to exceed single-target damage in PvE as well, but its that’s not quite true – there’s nothing that I found a Thief to excel at.

At best, my Thief is decent in PvE – but that being decent comes from careful situational skill usage and learning how to play. It’s fun in that it requires more thinking and effort, but even with all that effort it’s annoying to watch some kitten mashing 1-2-1-2-1-2. run by and be just as, if not more, effective at killing enemies.

Edit: Oh, come on, kitten is censored? What are we? 12? No… don’t answer that. I can imagine some 12 year old rolling his face on the keyboard with his warrior anihilating pve….

It’s not a fair trade comparing any class in PvE to the Warrior. Warriors have been known to be the kings of PvE for months now.

Compare your progress farming to other classes like Eles and Rangers and you’ll find you’re not nearly as bad off as you think.

I’m far more concerned with the status of the thief class in WvW given how the game has devolved into nothing more than zerg on zerg combat. The only roaming groups you run into are all upleveled and harldy worth your time. In zergs, the thief brings absolutely nothing.

Your using a Fing shortbow, use S/P and pistolwhip and you’ll do the same thing.

Since when do ranged weapons do more then 1/3 of what you can do with a melee weapon?

Scootabuser.4915:

Your using a Fing shortbow, use S/P and pistolwhip and you’ll do the same thing.

Since when do ranged weapons do more then 1/3 of what you can do with a melee weapon?

Since the shortbow’s Cluster Bomb can be detonated in mid air to produce 3 explosions and hit far more enemies than a melee weapon can, if timed correctly.

My problem isn’t taking on enemies – I’ve managed a group of 15 grawl that were 5 levels below me.

But like I keep saying, compared to some other classes, the thief takes lot of effort for not much reward.

I also have a friend who’s an ele, and when we roll together, he manages to get more single target damage with his d/d ele then I could with d/x. Though he is 80, and I’m still only 64 with my Thief – I’m really hoping that makes the difference.

Anyway, good show.

Scootabuser.4915:

Since when do ranged weapons do more then 1/3 of what you can do with a melee weapon?

P/D pew pew *stealth* pewpewpewpewpew!